cleaning out my closet
by M3GAN
Summary: Trowa wakes up in the middle of the night because of disturbing memories of his childhood. (this is his made up past, so AU)


I don't own Gundam Wing. Or the song 'Cleaning out my closet'. Eminem does. .not Gundam wing! The song. Man that'd be weird.  
  
Rain fell against the small window, almost sounding like hail. Inside the small room, a dark figure lay sprawled out in the bed. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead and onto the pillow. Trowa opened his eyes. He touched his cheek and realized he'd been crying in his sleep again. He looked at the clock across the dark room. 3:06am. For the last week or so, he'd not been able to stay asleep through the night. Cathrin, his older sister, had died in an accident at the circus they worked at. The tightrope wasn't secure. She and three other men tumbled to their deaths in front of an audience.  
  
{A quick flashback of Trowa peeking through the curtain, watching as paramedics rushed to the four lifeless bodies. The audience fell silent and the room was filled with prayer. Trowa didn't prey, it never helped him. Until he was thirteen, he'd never heard of God or Heaven... or Hell.}  
  
Trowa hoisted himself out of bed and put on a pair of pants left lying on the floor from the previous day. It was a short walk to the bathroom, where he soaked his face in cool water. He filled a small cup too and took a refreshing drink. He paused and stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He looked at his dark green eyes staring back at him. Then it occurred to him that it wasn't Cathrins death that was bothering him so much anymore. He looked at the calendar. May 4th. His birthday was tomorrow. He knew that the other Gundam Pilots didn't know it. He'd pretend he couldn't remember it when they'd ask. He hated his birthday. It reminded him of the past. Before the wars. Before the gundams.  
  
He turned the radio on his alarm clock when he returned to his room. The song 'Cleaning out my closet' by Eminem had just started.  
  
//Have you ever been hated or discriminated against? I have, I've been protested and demonstrated against.//  
  
The whole world hated him. Because he was a Gundam Pilot. They all think that they liked causing death and destruction, and that they chose that position. Quatre had a perfect life as a little kid. Rich family. Loyal servants. He had everything handed to him with a promising future. Even after the battles, he still has such good fortune. He would never even imagine what Trowa grew up as.  
  
//Picket signs for my wicked rhymes. Look at the times. Sick is the mind of the motha fuckin' kid that's behind//  
  
Trowa got dressed and grabbed his truck keys off of the night stand. Once in his truck he turned the radio onto the station that had the Eminem song. He liked that song, and it suited his mood right now.  
  
//all this commotion. Emotions run deep as ocean's explodin.' Tempers flaring from parents, just blow 'em off and keep goin'.//  
  
The neighborhood seemed deserted this late at night. He remembered what Cathrin had told him so long ago. She said that dad used to always hit mom and cheat on her. He'd usually come home drunk, late at night. Mom would hide Trowa and Cathrin from him in the basement because he was so violent. They would listen to them scream and fight. Use bad words and break things. It was terrifying when one of them heard their name.  
  
//Not takin' nothin' from no one, give 'em hell long as I'm breathin.' Keep kickin' ass in the mornin,' an' takin' names in the evening. Leavem with a taste as sour as vinegar in they mouth. See, they can trigger me but they never figure me out.//  
  
Everyone saw him as an anti-social teenager. They've even caught him doing drugs a few times. Noin once tried taking him to a therapist once. But he'd rather keep things to himself. He hated the thought of spilling his heart to a stranger, paid to sit and listen.  
  
He only told her about his parents punishments.  
  
{a flashback of Trowa, six years old, standing in the kitchen in front of a broken glass of water that had slipped out of his small hand. He was trembling, staring terrified as his angry mom advanced on him, dog leash partially wrapped around her hand with the metal clip-on part hanging.}  
  
// Look at me now, I bet ya probably sick of me now. Ain't you mama?! I'ma make you look so ridiculous now!//  
  
His mom. He remembered her as a thin, pale lady. She was a waitress at a restaurant. And at night, a bar tender. She was heavy into liquor. A violent natured woman, who obviously, didn't like kids. Trowa remembered a rule she had placed in the house. If she came home late and there was a mess anywhere, like Dishes in the sink, or dirt tracked into the house. She would come right up to Trowas room where he was sleeping, and beat the shit out of him until he bled. Then he would have to go to school and lie about the bruises to the other Kindergarteners.  
  
//I'm sorry, Mama! I never meant to hurt you! I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet. //  
  
//I'm sorry, Mama! I never meant to hurt you! I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet. //  
  
She would always tell him about his 'evil, ass-hole' father. And she told him once of how he tried to kill Trowa in his sleep. That terrified him. He wasn't sure if it was true anymore, that maybe she was just trying to make him take sides.  
  
//I got some skeletons in my closet and I don't know if no one knows it. So before they thrown me inside my coffin and close it, I'ma expose it. //  
  
He'd always had an urge to tell someone, like Quatre, about all of this. But maybe he shouldn't... He was very shy about talking about things like this. Quatre wouldn't ever understand. So he just keeps quiet.  
  
Trowa stopped the truck. He was at the closed gates of a cemetery. He got out and walked over to the gates. They were locked up for the night. Abandoning his truck, he jumps the surrounding fence and continues through the dimly lit graveyard on foot. The place was packed with headstones. Probably unlucky deaths of war, he thought.  
  
He had remembered this place from so long ago. When a man brought him here. He couldn't remember who it was.  
  
// I'll take you back to 73 before I ever had a multi-platinum sellin' CD. I was a baby, maybe I was just a couple of months. My faggot father must have had his panties up in a bunch, cuz he split. //  
  
{Another flashback hit him. Cathrin and Trowa were hiding in that little closet in the basement during one of their parents fights. Their dad came stomping down the stairs and threw open the closet door. He grabbed Cathrin by the elbow and hoisted her to her feet.  
  
Their mom screamed and yelled at him as he dragged the terrified girl upstairs.  
  
Trowa stay huddled in the corner of the closet, forgotten about. He listened to the sound of his dads truck speed away. He could hear his mom crying upstairs in the kitchen.}  
  
//I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye. No, I don't on second thought, I just fuckin' wished he would die! I look at Hailie and I couldn't picture leavin' her side. Even if I hated Kim, I grit my teeth and I'd try to make it work with her at least for Hailie's sake. I maybe made some mistakes but I'm only human. But I'm man enough to face them today. //  
  
He still remembered when he was six. He sat in his room, all alone. Once, he snuck a kitchen knife up with him as he crept past his mom, passed out on the couch. He slashed angrily at his wrist expecting to black out in a moment. He'd seen it a couple times on a movie. He was trying to save himself from his future. But he hadn't eaten in two days, since his mom rarely comes home with food. So the blood didn't flow enough, and he was left with a painful scar on his arm.  
  
// What I did was stupid, no doubt it was dumb, but the smartest shit I did was take them bullets out of that gun. Cuz id'a killed 'em, shit I would have shot Kim an' him both. It's my life, I'd like to welcome y'all to The Eminem Show. //  
  
But the memory that hurt the most was when he was caught by the cops, trying to rob the house of a couple who'd gone on vacation. They were going to sue his mom for $1200.  
  
Trowa got scared of what his mom would do to him, and ran away. The sad thing is that she didn't even look for him. She was glad he left. For the following six months, he lived on the streets. Begging for money and food.  
  
//I'm sorry, Mama! I never meant to hurt you! I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet. //  
  
//I'm sorry, Mama! I never meant to hurt you! I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet. //  
  
Trowa stopped walking at a particular grave stone. It was in the far corner of the cemetery, among the bushes. He pulled out his lighter and used it to read the words 'Karen Meg Bloom' 1966-1998. It was his mom. She died of prescription drug abuse four years ago. Just now he remembered that she was heavy into drugs.  
  
// Now I would never dis my own mama just to get recognition. Take a second to listen for you think this record is dissin', But put yourself in my position. //  
  
For the first time in his life, he felt sympathy for the woman who for so long stuck fear into his heart. A single mother. Two full time jobs. Who could blame her? She tried so hard to keep him fed. He then felt guilty because once or twice, he had stolen from her.  
  
// Just try to envision witnessin' your Mama poppin' prescription pills in the kitchen, bitchin' that someone's always goin' throuh her purse and shits missin.' Going through public housing systems, victim of Munchausen's syndrome.//  
  
But he was just a little kid. "you had no right to hit me like THAT!" he yelled aloud to the silence of the cemetery. Rain pored down his face, blending with his tears "and why the Hell would you make me believe those things 'bout dad?!" he yelled at the tomb stone. He coughed as his throat swelled up ".and maybe if you'd just tell me why you were mad instead of beating the shit outa me, I would have been different.".  
  
// My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't 'til I grew up, now I blew up. It makes you sick to ya stomach, doesn't it? Wasn't it the reason you made that CD for me, Ma? So you could try to justify the way you treated me, Ma?!//  
  
Trowa spit on her grave "it's your own fault, you slut! You can't blame me for what dad did!" he yells in a shaky voice. "And were you happier when I was gone? Did you think that it was all over?" he says bitterly, glairing at the name on the tomb.  
  
//But guess what, yer gettin' older now and it's cold when your lonely. An' Nathan's getting' up so quick, he's gonna know that your foney. And Hailie's getting' so big now, you should see her, she's beautiful. But you'll never see her, she won't even be at your funeral! //  
  
"and what really makes me sick is that you, never in you whole life, ever apologized to me. Even when you knew you were wrong. What the Hell were you trying to prove!?!" Trowa clenched his fists in anger. His words were almost drowned out by thunder cracking through the sky.  
  
// See what hurts me the most is you won't admit you was wrong. Bitch, do ya song! Keep tellin' yourself that you was a mom! But how dare you try to take what you didn't help me to get. You selfish bitch, I hope you fuckin' burn in hell for this shit!//  
  
"and all those times you told me that you wish dad had killed me, or taken me too." he wept sadly.  
  
//Remember when Ronnie died and you said you wished it was me? Well, guess what, I am dead. Dead to you as can be! //  
  
Trowa stood there for what seemed like an hour. He finally turned from the grave feeling satisfied and returned to the truck. He knew he meant everything he said. He just wished he'd had the guts to say it to her when he had the chance. Now, its too late.  
  
The truck drove away into the darkness, never returning again.  
  
//I'm sorry, Mama! I never meant to hurt you! I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet.//  
  
//I'm sorry, Mama! I never meant to hurt you! I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet. //  
  
  
  
.The end. 


End file.
